Yes, and I think it's on purpose. Having read that recent interview it was said that Fuji had many female customers in Asia who prefer "dreamy" soft/smooth looking portraits, which is opposite what Western customers prefer.

Fuji is very good at responding to customer needs, so we just have to find a way to let Fuji know that options for much less or even no NR at high ISO is highly desirable to their Western markets.

For a start, sites like DPreview and others need to use their contacts with Fuji to communicate this on behalf of the user base.

I'm pretty sure a firmware update could resolve this complaint pretty effectively. Just a matter of adding more NR options really. And Fuji is king of firmware updates.

What about the presence of NR in RAW files? Why do they do this?

I don't know that they do, I haven't seen it. Could you please post some examples of what you're talking about?

Sal

Sal, just go to the comparison tools and pick 4 cameras and have them show them in RAW (in DPR of course), you will see what I am talking about, the lowest to the highest ISO's)

All this shows is how RAW files look after being converted to jpegs in Adobe Camera RAW. It doesn't reflect on whether or not RAW files have baked-in NR. What was the NR and sharpness settings in the RAW converter? The notes only say "standard development." Did they adjust the cameras to look the same or did they just rely on Adobe defaults?

Quite frankly, I don't know how anyone would prove or disprove that any RAW file has baked-in processing as you can't see RAW, only converted RAW. The DPS samples could be adjusted in the RAW converter to look identical by minute changes in the NR and/or sharpness sliders, but which one is the "correct" one?